It’s not that we choose to be oblivious to the possibility of romance, it’s that life can sometimes sway us away from chance meet cutes or distracting us from realizing what’s actually there via social cues. Because when it comes down to it: you’re living your best protagonist life and so am I (…ish). So for love interests to intersect as often and as easily as they do and for something to come out of it? Well…I’m just apprehensive, okay?

But before I delve into this unnecessary rant as to why I’d be such a terrible protagonist a la romantic lead, I should preface this all to say that love and romance and this social ideal of relationships being the ultimate goal of narrative fulfillment is not the be-all-end-all of protagonism (?). There is a spectrum of emotional, romantic, and sexual attraction that exists and I write this discussion with the intention to examine these relationships being commonly relied upon to be that end game crutch for heroes to work towards. Essentially, this post considers happily-ever-afters (which is fine) with a questioning eye because although this is fiction, we should still question how it gets to the end sometimes, ya know?

What Love Interests You?

Let’s start at the beginning: what is protag-you looking for in a love interest?

Go ahead and select your love interest of choice: Best Friend? New Broodster or Manic Pixie in town? A celebrity? An old flame? Someone misunderstood? Someone “normal”? Someone someone?

Actually, does it matter?

On a rudimentary level, relation(ships) are a connection between people. And the love interest who likes you? Well, they like you. But the concern in developing any ship is that the person who boards your ship should matterequally to you even wanting to be on said ship to begin with.Meaning it’s a two-way-street to being someone’s love interest and you having interests [in that same person] too.

So my point isn’t that it’s not possible to select any ship and proceed to exchange anchor vows. Instead, it’s completely normal to not realize the wealth of could-be romances which surround us especially due to the circumstance of spectacular endeavours we partake in on the daily, such as: going to work, taking a nap, needing to study, hanging out, eating Taco Bell, taking another nap—-In all these different places we find ourselves meandering through, there are extraneous factors that could push-and-pull us away from meeting the ideal significant other. And it’s no fault to you or the other side if nothing comes of it; just human nature running its course.

You, as the Love Interest

When we also look inside ourselves as a love interest, establishing a connection [with any ship] becomes even more arduous. Let’s examine some protagonist archetypes:

Hottie with a Body: Strike that smug pose you fine specimen because you’ve got hundreds of beady protagonists’ eyes staring at you…even if you don’t know it. It’s basically a choose your own adventure without the guarantee that you’re choosing the Fated One because there are several other pairs of eyes vying for your attention. The issue (?) then is not that you don’t know you’re someone’s love interest, it’s that you’re the ideal love interest to many–so who becomes end-game, if at all?

Kid in Grey T-Shirt #8: Most protagonists will find themselves in this category without a fault of their own. Maybe you’ve got some great qualities and maybe you don’t, but while you’re the average maverick of the everyday folk, attraction still lies in the eye of the beholder. So you might be a 9/10 and 3/10 at the same time…and there’s very little you can do about that. The difficulty here is that because we mostly see ourselves (and others) as somewhat ‘”normal”, most verbal/non-verbal cues begin to blend into a normalized and expected state. (But perhaps this is the Canadian in me speaking and everyone I usually meet is a god damn Hufflepuff.)

The Ride Or Die Best Friend: Good luck.

I consider these examples on a very [very] superficial level, but all characters will endure hurdles to expressions of interest. And it’s not that many of us are non-reciprocating or are intentionally ignorant (or apathetic) to such feelings. Instead, the physical and conversational cues we receive might not be something we’re inclined to be reactive to. Humour to me could be insulting to someone else. Fun to you could be socially exhausting for me, etcetera etc. Moreover, it’s not always explicit even if well-intended. At the end of the day, it’s a continuous trial-and-error in finding someone who best fits you [at the time] that makes it all part of the journey and experience of having to putting work into cultivating a relationship.

So to bring it all back to my awful heroism re: me being a love interest: I’m all for being Guy #12387 in Grey Shirt and forever shirk my protagonist responsibilities of saving the world all for an extra hour of sleep. Don’t get me wrong, I think finding someone to share your experiences with is one of the most beautiful things in life, and I’m undoubtedly all for it. But I’m also not the greatest at being proactive to realizing such cues from parties who might be interested (meaning niceties are just that and there are no ill hidden motives here). So any romance in fiction starring yours truly would probably involve me being a cheerleader to everyone else’s fulfillment than to be focused on my own. A true Canadian-Hufflepuff cop out, eh?

But if there’s no truer reason for my being an awful love interest, it’s perhaps not knowing the difference between a “hey” and a “heyyy” for about a few years.

Infinitely different yet indefinitely possible.

Afterthought Prompts:

Have you had friends tell you that you’re someone’s love interest? Inversely, have you been interested in someone and tried to drop clues but to no avail?

Being clueless about any possible romantic entanglement is my aesthetic. Unless someone tells it straight to my face, it just ain’t real hahaha so I am totally not protagonist-material either. Also, who has that kind of time to spend with someone new and to get to know them with life?
Was there a specific video game that inspired this or just video gaming in general? I am curious now haha

Okay but let’s play the inverse: WHAT IF SOMEONE FROM THE CW NETWORK TV SHOW WAS SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR ONE TRUE BAE? Food for thought, Kat. FOOD. FOR. THOUGHT.

That’s the thing with “telling people straight to their face” — it’s tough, and sometimes if you’re at that point of inexplicable friendship…then, do you risk it all for the chance?

It’s interesting that you bring up video games being the inspiration for this because while I have played a lot of online video games where you get to know Internet-people on a very personal level (as personal as can be) — and note: I have seen people get married from long distance gaming relationships — I always just never knew the advances because it’s mostly all in text because I rarely put myself in a position to voice chat (cause my voice is horrendous to me).

DO NOT TEMPT ME, JOEY! My brain is capable of going through 2345872832915 combinations of possible relationship outcomes if I ever were to run into a CW bae, but having run into a couple of them, I just don’t think that will ever happen hahaha
And no one said it’d be easy to tell it to someone’s face! It’s SUPER hard, that’s why it feels so accomplishing when it actually works out afterwards haha but yeah, it sucks when you are in that place in a friendship and you don’t want to risk it. Very tricky! And it can backfire …
Nooo, don’t say that about your voice! I don’t like having mine recorded either though … so I guess I can relate?

Also for real, I ain’t got time for romance in between getting two hours of sleep, studying, and going to classes/work. This is why I have to vicariously experience them from YA lmaooo @ my poor social life.

THIS POST MAY HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY YOUR LIFE, AILA. I AM IN AWE OF YOUR FOCUS AT SCHOOL THAT I’M LIKE “THIS CATCH IS MEETING CRAZY COOL AUTHORS AND READING ALL THE AWESOME BOOKS AND HAS A FAIRY LIGHT WALL LIKE WHY SHE NOT DATINNNNNNN???”

It sounds like you just need a blatant love interest. One who will straight out tell you they’re interested. Someone cocky, like from one of those sports romances I read. LOL. Or maybe just someone who wants to give you a meal and bed?

This is basically me. Even if someone spelled it out to me that someone was interested in me I’d be totally oblivious. In my defense though, there’s not a lot of options in my middle of nowhere rural village haha.

I think I’d be a terrible protagonist, and my story would have everyone’s least favourite trope of lack of communication. My now bf and I were friends for a year before we finally picked up on each other’s hints and shared our feelngs. Definitely a slow-moving romance